This had to stop. She felt guilty!

  She palmed his chest and pressed against him, subtly at first, then a little harder.

  “Mike, stop.”

  He rocked his palm against her clit, and she fought the sensations. She was close, so damn close she almost thought about coming, of tossing aside her convictions and letting it all loose.

  But she couldn’t. Goddamit, she couldn’t. Damn scruples.

  “Mike, please stop.” She grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand out of her skirt.

  He lifted his head and looked at her, a confused frown lining his brow.

  And in that moment, she knew exactly why. Because she was panting, her breasts heaving against his chest, her body shaking all over. And though his cock was hard as he rocked it against her thigh, there was something in his eyes that told her he wasn’t as invested in this as she was. A detachment she’d noticed before.

  Something that wasn’t there when she looked into Seth’s eyes. With Seth there was sex, but she could look into his eyes and see clear down to his soul. When he was with her he was wholly engaged in the two of them, in the experience.

  Mike felt no emotion in this. It was pure lust and nothing more. He and Abby didn’t have the emotional connection she and Seth did.

  “What’s wrong Abby? You’re so damn close I can feel you trembling.”

  “I know. God, I know. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  “We can go to my place if it bothers you. I wasn’t thinking about the lack of privacy here.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that. I . . . I don’t even know where to start.”

  Mike blew out a breath and stepped back, putting distance between them. He tilted his head to the side and studied her. “It’s Seth.”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “He said as much about you last night.”

  “He did?” She couldn’t help the smile that crept onto her face. She didn’t mean to, really. It just appeared. And she felt really shitty about it and tried to wipe it off, but she couldn’t.

  “You’re people who fall in love. It’s sickening the way it’s written all over your face.”

  He was teasing her. She saw it in the half curve of his lips, the way he tilted his head a certain way.

  “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  “Don’t be.” He pulled her to him and hugged her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He paused for a few seconds, then whispered, “I envy your ability to love.”

  She was going to ask him what he meant, but he pushed her back and grinned. “I’m going to drop you off at Seth’s. I might have mentioned to him that you and I had a date tonight, and he’s probably tearing his house apart in jealousy right now.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Mike shrugged. “Hey, I’m a prick. Everyone knows that.”

  seth paced his living room, downing the last of the rum and staring down the wet bar, contemplating another drink.

  Bad idea. He had surgery early in the morning. Besides, the alcohol hadn’t even touched the irritation burning inside him all night. Screw all night—try ever since earlier today, when Mike had casually mentioned on his way out of the clinic that he was picking up Abby tonight.

  Which meant she’d no more left his place last night, left his bed last night, than she’d gone home and agreed to a date with Mike tonight. Maybe she’d even called Mike when she’d gotten home.

  Either way, he knew what it meant. She didn’t care about him.

  Which kind of annoyed him. Okay, it really hurt, goddammit. And he hadn’t gone into this to get hurt again. But didn’t it just figure it had happened anyway? He’d closed his heart to loving a woman after his ex had stomped all over it and left a withered, dried-out stump in her wake. After that, he used women for sex and nothing more.

  He’d done a pretty damn good job of it, too. Mike was a good teacher in that area, and he’d watched and learned from the master.

  But somewhere along the way, he’d left the door open. And over the past year, Abby had crept in.

  Now he’d have to close it again.

  Maybe he’d have that second drink after all.

  When the doorbell rang, he frowned. Shit. Who the hell would come over this time of night? He went to the door and looked out the peephole, shocked as hell to see Abby. He opened the door, regarding her warily.

  “Hey,” she said, a wash of color covering her cheeks.

  “Hey yourself. I thought you were out with Mike tonight.”

  That color on her cheeks deepened. “I know. He told me that you knew. He just dropped me off.”

  “Why?”

  “Can I come in, or do you want to do this out here?”

  “Oh. Sorry.” He moved aside to let her in. Damn, she looked hot in a tight black skirt and skimpy little halter. Her hair was partially up with little blonde tendrils escaping a jeweled clip. He clenched his fingers into a fist to keep from reaching out and touching her. “Have a seat. Would you like a drink?”

  “No. Thanks.” She sat on the sofa in the living room. Balanced precariously on the edge like she might fall off any second was more like it.

  And she looked profoundly uncomfortable.

  Which meant only one thing. She had come here to tell him she didn’t want to see him anymore.

  How nice of Mike to let her do this alone. Then again, maybe she’d wanted to do it without him being here. That would be Abby’s way. She wouldn’t want Mike to stand around smiling victoriously while she let Seth down.

  “Why are you here, Abby?”

  Her head shot up, her eyes wide with something akin to abject terror. “I . . . I need to tell you something.”

  He supposed he could be a gentleman and make it easier for her, but he wasn’t feeling particularly chivalrous at the moment. Instead, he took a seat on the sofa across from hers. “Sure. Shoot.”

  He stretched his legs out, resting his arms on the back of the sofa. No fucking way was he going to clue her in that her dismissal bothered him. When she told him, he’d just brush it off as no big deal and send her on her way. Mike was probably waiting outside in the car.

  Just say it and get it over with, Abby.

  “You have something to say?”

  “I’m in love with you, Seth.”

  He drummed his fingers on the top of the sofa, looking bored. “So?”

  She arched a brow. “So?”

  But as her words sank in, his fingers stilled and he leaned forward. “What did you just say?”

  She swallowed, and he watched the movement of her creamy throat. “I said I’m love with you.”

  That wasn’t at all what he’d prepared himself to hear. Not at all.

  Holy fucking shit!

  abby watched the play of emotions crossing seth’s face, resisting the urge to grin. She gathered he had been prepared for her to say something else entirely.

  “You love me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Goddamn.” He blinked, then jammed his fingers through his hair and looked up at her again. “You love me.”

  “Yes,” she said, this time laughing. “I love you.”

  He stood and took the two steps toward her, then grabbed her hands and pulled her up.

  “You love me.”

  She nodded.

  He shook his head. “I thought . . . fuck it. It doesn’t matter what I thought.” He bent and pressed his lips to hers. His kiss was achingly tender, filled with so much emotion and heart it brought tears to her eyes. His fingers splayed over the bare skin of her back, drawing her closer.

  She wanted to crawl right inside him.

  He pulled away, his gaze dark, filled with emotions she couldn’t name.

  “I’ve been falling in love with you every day since you first came to the clinic, Abby. I didn’t want to fall in love. I swore I wouldn’t. And after this weekend with you and me and Mike, I wasn’t sure what you wanted, but I sure as hell knew what I wanted. I wanted you. Not to share you. Never, ever to share you again.”

  Her heart soared with every word. “I’m a one-man woman. This weekend was the experience of a lifetime, a fantasy come true. I won’t deny that I enjoyed the hell out of it. But I don’t ever want to repeat it.”

  He grinned. “I enjoyed it, too. But I can fulfill your fantasies in a lot of different ways.”

  Her brows lifted. “I’ll just bet you can.”

  “And I’ll wager you have some really wild fantasies.”

  Somehow she knew he’d be open to exploring every single one of them with her. She couldn’t wait. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  His fingers blazed a slow, sensual trail along her spine, sliding into her skirt and stopping just short of the crack of her ass. “Tell me one right now.”

  She looked around, then smiled. “I’ve always had this fantasy about being bent over a sofa, with my skirt hiked up . . .”

  His smile was devastating to her senses. Dark and filled with promise.

  “I think we can accommodate you.” He moved behind the sofa, then bent her over it.

  She wiggled her ass for him, then spread her legs.

  “Oh yeah. I like this fantasy of yours, Abby.”

  He hadn’t even touched her yet, and she was soaking wet. She felt his hands at the hem of her skirt, his knuckles brushing the skin of her thighs. He raised her skirt so slowly she wanted to scream, her clit throbbing in anticipation.

  What she hadn’t expected was for him to pull her panties aside and slide his hot tongue right into her pussy. She shrieked and gripped the couch cushions. He lapped her cream, his tongue snaking up to encircle her clit.

  The man was a marvel with his tongue, and a constant sexual surprise. He reached between her legs with his fingers to stroke her pussy, tugging her clit until she was writhing against his hand.

  “Come for me, baby,” he urged, coaxing an orgasm from her as easily as if he’d asked her to pass the salt. She tensed and cried out, shuddering against his probing tongue and fingers.

  God, she’d been so primed for an orgasm, so pumped up and sexually charged from Mike earlier, that Seth took her over the edge in seconds. She panted, her eyes closed, thinking she should feel guilty that one man had finished what another had started.

  No. The right man had finished what the wrong man had started. And that she wouldn’t feel guilty about.

  She was still trembling when he stood, parted her legs with his thighs, and entered her with a solid thrust, driving her against the back of the couch. She held on as he pounded her hard, giving her exactly what she’d asked for, fulfilling yet another of her deep, dark fantasies.

  He fucked her relentlessly, giving her no time to even catch her breath as he pistoned his cock upward, rocking her clit against the couch until her pussy gripped him so hard he yelled her name, grabbed her hips in a punishing grip, and came in a torrent of shuddering gasps. He fell against her back, his heartbeat hammering against her.

  When he withdrew, he turned her around and lifted her legs to wrap them around him. He kissed her—he seemed to love kissing her, thank God—once again tenderly, taking the clip out of her hair so he could thread his fingers through the tendrils.

  She loved how he touched her.

  He carried her this way to his bedroom, his pants nearly halfway down, both of them laughing as he almost tripped several times. They fell onto the bed and lay there, looking at each other.

  “You love me,” he said again, a silly smile on his face that she was certain mirrored her own.

  “Yes. And you love me.”

  “I sure as hell do.”

  “So now what?”

  He leaned up on an elbow and untied the strings of her halter. “Now we fuck again.”

  Laughing, she said, “I know that. I mean with us.”

  As he pulled the fabric down, exposing her breasts, he said, “We take it a day at a time. You have a career to start, and a life to begin. I won’t stand in the way of that.”

  And that was one of the things she loved most about him. He recognized her need to be independent, even without her saying it. Falling in love had been the wildest part of her weekend. Unexpected, but certainly not unwanted.

  She’d gotten way more out of this bet than she had planned.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Blair and Callie when she saw them again. But right now there was an incredibly sexy man undressing her. She reached for the buttons of his shirt and began undoing them.

  “So, Seth, we’ve delved a lot into my fantasies. Let’s talk about yours . . .”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jaci Burton is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of the Play-by-Play series, the Hope series, and the Wild Riders series, and the coauthor of several anthologies with Lora Leigh.

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